Anthology
by kinzeylee
Summary: She remembers lives, stories, in dreams that she never lived. She thinks they might be definitely true.


**Anthology**

She remembers lives, _stories_, in dreams that she never lived. She thinks they might be definitely true.

"Watch me run," he says, a boyish grin playing on his lips and hope glinting in the depths of his eyes. He says it to himself, but somehow, she can hear him. She can hear him from under the earth, and through time and space, and in the shadowed corners of her dreams. "Watch me run," he says, and she nods eagerly at his words, her own lips quirking up into a smile.

She wakes up from the dream and finds that she's smiling and crying at the same time. Like all of her dreams, it was both good and bad. She can't help but love the man (that strange old and young, _really clever_ man) who appears in all of her dreams. There's just something about him that's irresistible, and he makes her smile, even as she dies, even as she's buried alive, even when she explodes like a star and falls from the sky. She knows that because he's there, she will be reborn. ( Again.)

So she gets up and goes to work. She smiles and pouts and buzzes with energy because there's that constant thought, in the back of her mind, that says _this could be the day_. This could be the day for…for…alright, so she's not exactly sure "what it could be for" yet, but she knows it's something big.

She does her job, and then goes to the other side of town and does her other job. _Really_, she thinks as she says hello to her unsuspecting boss, _what's the point of having just one life when you can have two?_ She loves adventure, she loves mystery, and she lives for danger. One life is definitely not enough.

She's always had a soft spot for children, and so she often takes babysitting jobs, just for the fun of it. The best part is bedtime, and _story time_, and she has no trouble getting the children into their pajamas and off to sleep.

"Let me tell you a story," she says to the little girl as she tucks her into bed. "And this one is _definitely_ true."

"Once upon a time…," she was a princess, and she helped a great warrior navigate through an endless maze. In return for her help, he promised to take her with him, away from her prison.…

…she was a nanny in London, and with the help of a chimney sweep (and one very fine umbrella), she climbed up into the clouds, and scared away the bad dreams of her charge with a single teardrop…

…she created the fish, and hung the stars in the sky, and puts out the sun at night…

…and she's beginning to wonder how much of her stories are imagination, and how much are _memory_.

She feels like she's on the cusp of something great, something wonderful. She needs to remember something important, something in the depths of her dreams and the corners of her consciousness. She tries to explain this to her friends and family. They smile and nod and say _you're just going through a faze, sweetie, you'll settle down soon, darling, it's normal for someone your age to have these feelings,love,yaddhayaddhayaddhayaddha ya…_

"Sweet little Clara," they say when they think she can't hear them, "when is she ever going to come down from the clouds?"

"I already came down," she mutters to herself darkly. She is **not** sweet and she is **certainly not** little…she tells her boyfriend as much and he laughs at her. She throws a shoe at him in response, and suddenly they're fighting, screaming at each other. She demands to know why he treats her like a child, and he ignores that, instead questioning her on what she does every day from four to seven.

"Anything I want to," she snaps, "and it's really none of your business!"

"You're impossible," he snarls as he stalks out of her house. "Thank you," she calls out after him. "I like impossible."

(_I am impossible_)

And those three words, as strange and unlikely as they are, are the mantra that forms in her mind. They are cooed gently, softly, to her, at all hours of her existence, and she finds that they are the one thing she believes in. Out of everything in her life, they are what seem most like reality, and least like a dream. (I am impossible I am impossible _I am impossible…)_

She idly wonders if she's also slightly crazy.

And then one day, in a massive whirl of danger and excitement and adventure, she is vindicated. That really clever man (the one who lurks in all her dreams) pops into reality and whisks her away. She loves every aspect of this existence, and she thirsts for more. The danger of it is addicting, and dancing with death becomes her, she discovers. She's very good at it: she knows all of the steps, and she escapes its clutches every time. She's becoming even more impossible than before.

The man, in the flesh, is even more fantastical then in her dreams. He's everything she couldn't have expected, and she feels a connection to him that reminds her of fire on oil. His name is the Doctor (Doctor Who?) and he takes her to see the stars in a box that's smaller on the outside. She loves that box, even though it seems to hate her, and she thinks that maybe she understands it just a bit. They are both impossible creatures, and together they can do impossible things. She's finally found something in this universe that can _see her_, and what she's capable of (because she's always felt _so much smaller on the outside._)

This new life is just like one of her unbelievable stories, except she doesn't think it will ever end. The pages of the book keep on turning, keep on flipping, and she can't wait to see more. Sometimes though, and only on rare occasions, she feels like she might be missing something. Some of the pages in her book, in her life story, seem to be missing, and the ripped edges still connected to the spine are like tiny pins that prick at her fingers. But besides that, everything is fine. Besides the haunting groans of the TARDIS, and the strange looks from the Doctor (when he thinks she's not looking) everything is perfect. Her old life, page one, burns away before her eyes to reveal _this,_ all of this; the universe has so much more than just 101 places to see. Even if it takes a hundred lifetimes, she swears to herself, _I will see it all._

She throws all of her other stories away in favor of this one: the one where a girl who's good at spinning tales is taken up into the stars by a boy that cannot age. They fly on, on, on, second star to the right, straight on till morning, into a land so fantastical and incredible that she often wonders if she's dreaming. And sure, their means of transportation may hate her, and the boy may have no idea what it's like to be mortal, and yes, he might look at her occasionally like he can't understand her at all, but this is her story, the only one that does not exist solely in her dreams, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

The enemies are advancing, her character is changing, and the crocodile is coming, the telltale tick-tock-tick-tock telling her that time is closing in, running out. She can feel a shadow, hanging over both their heads, one that is deadly and silent, one that will fall soon-

-but even when she's terrified, she remembers what he told her only yesterday, and yet such a long time ago.

She's found something in this universe, in herself, that's so precious, and she won't ever let go. She will hold onto it tight with both hands, even if it kills her (again?), and she will escape this shadow. She will come out from under this dark menace, and then stitch it back into place.

"Watch _**me**_ run," she says, and then she steps into the stars, and doesn't look back.


End file.
